If you are busy and can't attend city council meetings but still want to stay informed please read this from local blogger, Joseph Morabito. Thank you to him for letting us know what happened at the recent Wildomar Council Meeting. For this blog and others go to http://wildomarrap.blogspot.com/ (comments allowed!).
City Council Meeting May 14, 2014
The meeting started with a moment of silence for two people. Edy Roadarme and DJ Kisner. Edy published an ebook about Wildomar Cemetery History that I'd started reading last year. Here's the link to her book.
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There were a couple of awards handed out tonight.
One to the city for its budget (I guess a person needs to be part of the city to get it... sorry, I don't get it, but I'll take your word for it that it's cool).
The other was for our city clerk Debbie Lee.
She coincidentally marked her fifth year with Wildomar, and was our city's first employee.
She was presented with a city clerk award for excellence in her field.
Congrats Debbie!
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City Attorney Thomas Jex gave a brief rundown of Item 3 on the closed session agenda, "the city council voted unanimously to defend the cases, with no more reportable action on those matters."
You may be asking,"What is Item 3?"
You probably know that we keep getting sued by the same group of people.
It's broken into two parts, A and B.
A. Alliance for Intelligent Planning v. City of Wildomar and CV
Communities – Case Number MCC 1400546
B. Martha Bridges and John Burkett v. City of Wildomar and CV
Communities – Case Number MCC 1400557
Thank you self appointed, unelected, self glossed "community activists"...
Thanks for nothing that is.------------
As for the rest of the meeting, I found there to be several items that were very interesting that deserve more individual attention. Among them were issues Council Member Bob Cashman wanted to discuss from the Consent Calendar Items:
- 1.5 — Library Development Impact Fee
- 1.6 — Animal Control Services Agreement
- 1.11 — Sycamore Academy CMFA JPA Agreement
- 3.2 — Cooperative Agreement with Riverside County Flood Control -
Wildomar Master Drainage Plan Lateral C-1 (aka Billie Ann Storm
Drain) - 3.4 — Animal Shelter Credits and Marketing Program
- 3.5 — City Hall Facilities
In brief:
1.5 is about a pool of money that has long ago been collected for libraries, but is just sitting there.
1.6 is about Animal Friends of the Valleys. Something that has long been a sticking point for Wildomar since the terms simply aren't distributed fairly among the member cities. (I'm going to blog about this topic soon.)
1.11 is about the bonds for Sycamore Academy, and the concern was whether or not Wildomar would be on the hook for payment if Sycamore failed to pay them. It was emphatically stated, by City Manager Gary Nordquist, that Wildomar is "not on the hook for that, the city has nothing to do [with that], it's not a liability for the city, there's no need for a surety bond because we don't have any criteria or association with that debt."
3.2 Has to do with an area that constantly floods (during those rare rains). If you know where Plow Boys is on Palomar near Arnold, this project will help that area.
3.4 This wasn't clear. It has to do with matching funds at Animal Friends of the Valleys. We had a surplus, of $18k and the options were to put it back into the general fund or to apply it to animal related programs, like altering and ID chips... or in the words of Council Member Tim Walker Clip n' Chip.
AFV is offering an incentive to the participating cities of matching up to $12,500. Due to the wording involving "Marketing Program" the council wants that clarified before entering into such agreements. I can just see it now... a large portion of the "matching funds" going into the marketing arm... I agree with the council that the program is a good one but the "marketing" angle needs to be hammered out first.
3.5 The lease was extended for two more years, and the city council chambers will be moving down the hall.
